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Just One Thing |
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Simple Practices for Resilience and Happiness from |
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DR. RICK HANSON |
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Registration is still open for my Strong Heart 4-week series on improving all your important relationships - which starts this week. If you're having trouble with others, this series will help you learn to get on your own side, handle conflicts with others, communicate more effectively, and be your best in situations with other people. |
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What’s Your Heart Saying? |
THE PRACTICE: |
Speak from the heart. |
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— Why? — |
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One Christmas I hiked down into the Grand Canyon, whose bottom lay a vertical mile below the rim. Its walls were layered like a cake, and a foot-high stripe of red or gray rock indicated million-plus years of erosion by the Colorado River. Think of water – so soft and gentle – gradually carving through the hardest stone to reveal great beauty. Sometimes what seems weakest is actually the most powerful.
In the same way, speaking from an open heart can seem so vulnerable yet be the strongest move of all. Naming the truth – in particular, the facts of one's experience, which no one can disprove – with simplicity and sincerity, and without contentiousness or blame, has great moral force. You can see the effects writ small and large, from a child telling her parents "I feel bad when you fight" to the profound impact of people describing the atrocities they suffered in Kosovo or Rwanda.
I met with a man whose marriage is being smothered by the weight of everything unsaid. What's unnamed is all normal-range stuff – like wishing his wife were less irritable with their children and more affectionate with him – but there's been a kind of fear about facing it, as if it could blow up the relationship. But not talking is what's actually blowing up their relationship – and in fact, when people do communicate in a heartfelt way, it's dignified and compelling, and it usually evokes support and open-heartedness from others. |
— How? — |
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This week look for one or more opportunities to speak from your heart. Pick a topic, a person, and a moment that's likely to go well.
Before you talk:
- Ground yourself in good intentions. To discover and express the truth, whatever it is. To help yourself and the other person.
- Get a basic sense of what you want to say. Focus on your experience: thoughts, feelings, body sensations, wants, memories, images, the dynamic flow through awareness; it's hard to argue with your experience, but easy to get into wrangles about situations, events, the past, or problem-solving.
- Be confident. Have faith in your sincerity, and in the truth itself. Recognize that others may not like what you have to say, but you have a right to say it without needing to justify it; and that saying it is probably good for your relationship.
When you speak:
- Take a breath and settle into your body.
- Recall being with people who care about you. (This will help deepen your sense of inner strength, and warm up the neural circuits of wholeheartedness.)
- Soften your throat, eyes, chest, and heart. Try to find a sense of goodwill, even compassion for the other person.
- Bring to mind what you want to say.
- Take another breath and start speaking.
- Try to stay in touch with your experience as you express it. Don't get into any sense of persuasion, justification, defensiveness, or problem-solving. (That's for later, if at all.) Be direct and to the point; when people truly speak from the heart, they often say what needs to be said in a few minutes or less; it's the "case" wrapped around the heart of the matter that takes all those extra words.
- Keep coming back to the essential point for you, whatever it is (especially if the other person gets reactive or tries to shift the topic). And allow other aspects or deeper layers of what’s in your heart to come forward as you speak. You don’t need to know everything you are going to say before you start speaking.
- Feel free to disengage if the other person is just not ready to hear you; maybe another time would be better. "Success" here is not getting the other person to change, but you expressing yourself.
- As appropriate, open to and encourage the other person to speak from the heart, too.
And afterward: know that whatever happened, you did a good thing. It's brave and it's hard (especially at first) to speak from the heart. But so necessary to make this world a better place. |
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Know someone who could speak more from the heart? |
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Share this Just One Thing practice with them! |
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NEW ON THE BEING WELL PODCAST |
Improving Focus and Fixing Your Attention Span |
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Dr. Rick and Forrest explore improving focus and fixing our attention spans in a world that is constantly trying to distract us. They discuss common reasons it’s hard to focus and three key interventions that can help most people. Rick teaches approaches from mindfulness practice, and Forrest explains how we can improve focus motivation and distress tolerance. Topics include ADHD, the role of dopamine, expanding the “Goldilocks Zone,” the practice of doing hard things, and how we can become less reliant on willpower. |
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NEW FROM THE WEDNESDAY MEDITATIONS + TALKS |
Living Your Values: Finding Peace and Resilience in a Chaotic World |
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Last week, guest teacher Daniel Ellenberg offered a live meditation on The Healing Power of Befriending Yourself, followed by a talk on Living Your Values: Finding Peace & Resilience in a Chaotic World, and I hope you'll check it out.
If you haven't yet, sign up to join me every week for this free, live offering.
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MORE GOOD STUFF |
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SCIENCE NEWS (VIEW ARCHIVE HERE)
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a new system using molecularly functionalized biomass hydrogels to harvest drinkable water from the air using a wide range of natural materials, even in dry conditions, offering a sustainable and scalable solution for clean water access.
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FOR PARENTS
During periods of intense demands – such as the first months after birth, while an infant is colicky, or when either of you is sick or flat out exhausted – it’s normal for a couple to have less time for each other. But over the long run, we have to keep investing in an intimate friendship if we want to continue to have one.
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FREE SUMMIT FROM ALEX HOWARD
Your nervous system controls and affects your stress responses, emotions, and even your physical health. When you learn to understand and regulate that system, you can enhance your well-being, improve your reltionships, and boost your resilience. That's what will be covered in the upcoming FREE Decode Your Nervous System series from Alex Howard, and I hope you'll check it out!
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HAVE YOU READ IT YET? |
Neurodharma |
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New Science, Ancient WIsdom, and Seven Practices of the Highest Happiness. Available in Hardcover, Paperback eBook, and Audiobook, wherever books are sold.
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| Get Your Copy |
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WORDS OF WISDOM |
"It's brave and it's hard (especially at first) to speak from the heart. But so necessary to make this world a better place." |
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— RICK HANSON, PHD |
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JUST ONE THING (JOT) is the free newsletter that suggests a simple practice each week for more joy, more fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind. A small thing repeated routinely adds up over time to produce big results.
Just one thing that could change your life.
(© Rick Hanson, 2024) |
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